Need Help...FZ series, windows xp drivers.

[tamamen]

Hi there... I have a Fz11M and it comes with windows vista which I dont want to use this system for a while. I formatted and loaded windows xp but having problem finding certain drivers. I found most of the drivers but could find the camera. Also I couldnt find a utility program to adjust my screen brightness, function keys and these kind of stuff.
I cant use vista just because of the programs I use are only works in Xp.
Need help please.

[Blencogo]

Hi tamamen and welcome to Club Vaio.

This FZ-Series has been manufactured, tested and released for sale as a Vista notebook. Sony will not support XP on this machine so there are NO XP Sony Utilities and NO XP Drivers Package. So - there is not going to be an easy answer to your problem.

The Camera Driver is one of the easier drivers to obtain as it is the same in both Vista and XP - so your original camera driver is OK.

The problem you have is that you need the Sony Utilities package to be installed which includes the Vaio Camera Utility, Power Management and support for the Function keys and other special keys. The Vista Vaio Camera Capture Utility won't work in XP so you will not be able to capture Video through the camera.

You could try installing the Original Sony XP Utilities for the FE31S but I have no idea if they will work on your model and some functions may not be supported but it is the closest you are going to get. This is a dangerous approach and is going to be trial and error.

Have you considered either a dual-boot system - with both XP and Vista on your Vaio - or installing Microsoft Virtual PC which will allow you to run multiple Operating Systems?

I don't think you will get the FZ-Series to run fully functionally with XP until someone works out which Sony Utilities will work with XP.

[tamamen]

thanks alot for the reply...
at least now I know it is useless to search for drivers in internet.

btw I see so many people created their own drivers for Unix and Linux systems for their VAIO's
pitty there is none for xp
...

[Blencogo]

Hi tamamen,

You will probably find drivers for the third-party hardware - do you have any other drivers missing? Look in Device Manager for yellow warning symbols.

It may be worth downloading the Original Utilities Package for the FE31Z - Right-click on the download and choose "Extract All". Extract to C:\Utils.

Try installing the Vaio Camera Utility - this may let you use the camera.

If you want to try getting the Function keys to work, try installing (IN ORDER) -

1. Sony Utilities
2. Sony Shared Library
3. Vaio Event Service

I think this is the only way to get the keys to work - third party software won't work.

[tamamen]

thanks again for respons

from this url

ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/vaio/ORIGINAL/

I found the utilities and the drivers for FE series. I am now downloading them.
When finish I will try to install them as you mentioned. BTW last week I tried Sz series utilities; some of them worked but some (which I need) didnt work.
Hope FE utilities will help...

I will let everyone know if it is ok or not from this post

thank you,

[tamamen]

😞 didnt worked.

I get

runtime,
kernell
and
synUtils.dll errors while trying to execute utils.

thanks anyways.